The Salt Lake Tribune Threatens to Sue HOPE
 
December 30, 2007
 
We want to apologize to our web site visitors and explain to them why there are no longer any articles from The Salt Lake Tribune.  It is because The Salt Lake Tribune threatened to sue The HOPE Organization unless we removed EVERY Salt Lake Tribune newspaper article from our non-profit educational web site.

We strive to provide an abundance of articles in order to have a vast and balanced educational database about polygamy practiced by the groups originating from Southern Utah and the Arizona Strip.  We feel that it is important to offer a wide variety of articles so that the reader has access to different facts, perspectives and opinions from numerous news reporters, media outlets and the general public.  Posting snippets of articles or just articles by only jounalists whose views we happen to agree with would not be providing a fair and unbiased educational database for the reader.

This legal problem started back in the summer of 2007, when a reporter with The Salt Lake Tribune asked us not to post her articles on our web site.  She first claimed that it was a matter of copyright.  HOPE explained to her that our use was strictly for non-profit educational purposes and that we feel we are eligible to post these articles under the "Fair Use" rule of the 1976 Copyright Law.

She later told us that she did not like some of the items on our web site; she said that we had "things on there that just aren't true."   Although we don't write these articles - journalists write them - we guess she doesn't like some facts that reporters have written in their articles and doesn't like that we have those articles on our web site.  She told us that she did not want to have her articles posted on our web site because she "can't be associated with activists."  Although we are not activists (we are human rights advocates), out of respect for her, we immediately stopped posting her articles.

However, that did not seem to suit her.  She again contacted us complaining that there were still (other previous reporters' - decades old and good luck finding them in the SLT archived web site) Salt Lake Tribune articles on our web site.  She wanted us to remove all of them - hers and every other reporter's articles.  When HOPE again explained that the articles are "Fair Use", she must have started complaining up the food chain, because we are now facing a lawsuit.

On December 27, 2007 we received a certified letter from an attorney representing The Salt Lake Tribune threatening that they would sue us unless we removed every Salt Lake Tribune article from our web site within 15 days.

We are just a small non-profit charity run by a few volunteers.  We do not have the resources to fight a lawsuit brought by The Salt Lake Tribune.

Although we truly believe that our web site is the epitome of why the "Fair Use" rule exists, we have chosen to acquiesce to their demands and remove these articles from our non-profit educational database.

The cost of this decision will be that the preservation of The Salt Lake Tribune articles regarding historical events and personal stories pertaining to the victims we serve will no longer be available to you, the reader.  We apologize for this.

But, we have decided that as a small charity with limited resources, it would not be prudent to waste money on legal fees when that money should be spent on assisting victims of polygamy.  We have also decided as volunteers that it would not be worth the personal stress and aggravation to endure a lawsuit just because of a prima donna reporter with an attitude.

It is indeed a sad day for society's right to have access to information for educational purposes.

It will be interesting to see if The Salt Lake Tribune threatens to sue other non-profit educational web sites that also post their articles on the Internet, or if they are just trying to stifle the exchange of information available on HOPE's web site.

Please feel free to contact The Salt Lake Tribune directly at www.sltrib.com to voice your opinions and comments related to this matter.